Friday, May 31 and Saturday, June 1
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania: The Safari Inn
After all of the planning, the organizing, the waiting, and the wondering, at long last, we arrive in Africa. We arrive tired, after an all-night flight from London, but very excited and a little nervous. On the recommendation of the Lonely Planet, we had booked a room at the Safari Inn. Little did we know that we would come to regard the Safari Inn as our home away from home in Tanzania, and we'd return there two more times.
Our room is on the fourth floor (really the fifth because the ground floor is "zero"), and as we climb up with our backpacks (no elevators here), I immediately realize that despite my best efforts at minimalist packing, I've just got too much stuff. (Luckily though, all of the "just in case" medicine and first aid equipment stayed in the backpack, unopened all summer.) Our room, while small and spare, is clean, and we've got our own bathroom, with hot shower and sit-down toilet. Had we known that this would be one of the more luxurious places that we'd stay in all summer, we probably would have at least taken a couple more showers. (At $13, this would also turn out to be one of our more expensive rooms.) Overall, we're very pleased with the hotel -- the only thing that makes me nervous is the sign at the bottom of the stairs prohibiting guests from bringing "women of immoral turpitude" into the rooms. From our window, we can hear the Muslim call to prayer from several of the neighboring mosques. In the evening, the sound is exotic and enchanting; at 5:00 a.m,. it's amazingly loud.
The view from our window at the Safari Inn
We're off to explore the city. For a big city in the developing world, Dar Es Salaam is relatively easy to negotiate. The streets are busy, but cars stop for red lights, and while we encounter quite a few people trying to sell us safaris or get us to change money on the black market, the touts were not very aggressive at all. We stop at the tourist office to get some advice on how to use public transportation get to a couple of national parks that we were hoping to visit . Our first bit of bad planning: we're told that it is not particularly easy to get to where we want to go on public transport and that we should book an organized safari. The price quoted for a six day safari is about half of our total budget for the trip. Discouraged and unsure whether we've been given good advice, we continue on. The afternoon is not a total loss, however. We quickly learn that one of the most important aspects of Tanzanian life is greeting people. At first, not knowing any Swahili, we are a little hesitant in our responses, but we find that the Tanzanians are extremely warm people and reward any efforts at Swahili greetings with a big smile and, unfortunately, more Swahili greetings. The basics, though, are easy: "Jambo" is an all-purpose greeting, which we use until we learn that it really means something like "Hi. I want to be friendly, but, please don't speak to me in Swahili because this is the only word that I know."
At lunch, we have our first taste of African food. Rice, vegetables with a mild curry sauce, and chicken, which while tasty, is tough and stringy. We also start to sample the African beers. In Tanzania, Randy prefers Safari; I like the Kilimanjaro. We find that Tusker will do in a pinch. When we get to Malawi, there's nothing but Carlsberg -- the only choice is green or gold.
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Back at the hotel, we're approached by a young Tanzanian man, Joseph, who tells us that his friend's safari company (Elephant Adventures) can organize trips to the parks that we want to see. Despite having been warned about dealing with touts (or "streetboys" as they're generally called), we decide to meet with Joseph's friend to see what he has to offer. We're taken to a small, upstairs office with no sign on the door, one desk, and a couple of safari pictures on the wall. The owner seems to know what he's talking about, but the place does not look like a travel agency and the price that we negotiate is about half of what the tourist office wanted. While we really want to go, after reading all kinds of horror stories about fly-by-night operations, we're very nervous. So, with typical Western distrust and suspicion, we spend the better part of the next day going to every other safari company we can find to see a more legitimate-looking company is running any similar trips. At the end of the day, we can't find anything else, so we pay our money (about a quarter of our entire budget for the trip) and keep our fingers crossed. It's our first, but hardly our last, leap of faith.
Knowing that the next day we'll be heading for parts unknown, we treat ourselves to a fancy dinner at the Holiday Inn, a very swanky hotel for Dar Es Salaam. Randy has the seafood pasta, and I have prawn curry. It's a meal that we'll remember, and talk about, for a long, long time. (I, in fact, memorized, and later recited, the entire seafood section of the menu.)
Swahili Word of the Day: Asante (thank-you).